A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Following my post yesterday on the 46th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 war, I think it might be useful to repeat this post from June 15, 2010, three years ago. It was called "Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War," and having published on my June 5 post the all-too-familiar picture of Uzi Narkis, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin entering the Old City of Jerusalem, it might be worth repeating my earlier reminder of the forgotten man in Israel's victory: the Prime Minister. The post was inspired in part by a Haaretz article cited below and in part by Tom Segev's book 1967: The War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, which helped rehabilitate Eshkol's reputation and included interviews with his widow.

If
you saw any presentations on the anniversary of the war, I'll wager you
saw pictures of Moshe Dayan, with his rakish eyepatch, striding in
combat gear through St. Stephen's Gate (Lion's Gate) into the Old City.
Most likely you saw pictures of Yitzhak Rabin here and there too, but
Levi Eshkol?

If you're old enough or have read the more
detailed studies of the war from the Israeli side (Michael Oren for the
political/military, Tom Segev for the social context), you'll certainly
be aware that Eshkol was Prime Minister during the war. But he
certainly doesn't play a major role in most people's mental imagery of
the narrative of the war. Since by now my regular readers will be aware
that I need to let the latent history professor loose on the blog now
and then, this is one of those times.

The writer in Ha'aretz, Eliyahu
Sacharov, wants to rectify that, and he's not alone. Many people
thought Eshkol received poor treatment from his countrymen at the time,
and since. Segev's book 1967
(2005 in Hebrew, 2007 in English) pays attention to Eshkol, and Segev
credits long conversations with Miriam Eshkol, the Prime Minister's
widow, among his sources.

Eshkol was Israel's third
Prime Minister, but like Moshe Sharett before him, he rose to power in
the shadow of David Ben-Gurion, and that was a very large shadow indeed.
When Ben-Gurion split with Mapai (the core of Labor) and formed Rafi in
1965, Eshkol led the new Labor Alignment to victory over Rafi in 1965
elections. Eshkol became Prime Minister; Ben-Gurion his critic from the
wings.

As was frequently the case at the time, Eshkol
held the Defense portfolio as well as that of Prime Minister. Over
several years he presided over the development and professionalization
of the IDF, helping to create the instrument that would win the Six-Day
War.

As tensions with the Arab world built up in early
1967, Eshkol worked hard to secure Israel's position internationally
within the context of the post-Suez settlement, also building a
relationship with US President Lyndon Johnson. Although Ben-Gurion
criticized Eshkol for weakness and indecisiveness, today his efforts are
seen as having strengthened Israel's hand internationally.

Under
pressure to create a Government of National Unity, with Rafi and many
others calling for the naming of Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister, Eshkol
fought to keep the portfolio. (Dayan, a Rafi ally of Ben-Gurion, had
won fame as Chief of Operations in the 1956 Sinai Campaign.) When King
Hussein of Jordan flew to Cairo to sign an alliance with Nasser and put
Jordanian troops under an Egyptian general, Eshkol ran out of political
capital. Eshkol was confronted with a loss of support within his own
Cabinet, within the Army, and in public opinion. On the afternoon of
June 1, he named Moshe Dayan Defense Minister.

Note: On the afternoon of June 1.
Four and a half days later, at a little after 7:00 am on June 5,
Israeli aircraft took off for their first wave of strikes against Arab
air forces. (Assuming Arab air forces would patrol at dawn expecting an
attack, then land to refuel and breakfast, Israel sought to strike in
that window.)

Major military operations are not planned
in four and a half days; pilots are not trained in four and a half
days. Yet in the wake of the victory, Dayan won the accolades and his
eleventh-hour appointment was seen as the salvation of the state, though
he had been a politician in opposition during the planning stages of
the war.

Eshkol had no choice but to name Dayan, and
certainly Dayan performed ably, though Chief of Staff Rabin and the IDF
Command had their war plan mostly in place already. Dayan took the
honors, and Eshkol's role was largely neglected.

Eshkol
remained in office, dying of a heart attack in February 1969, less than
two years after the war, and thus never wrote a memoir to defend his
position, as everyone else did. Eshkol was not forgotten — a national
park and the suburb of Ramat Eshkol, the first built over the Green
Line, are named for him; he has appeared on both paper notes and coins.
But until fairly recently, only his partisans have sought to give him
due credit for the war. That does seem to be changing.

"Michael Collins Dunn is the editor of The Middle East Journal. He also blogs. His latest posting summarizes a lot of material on the Iranian election and offers some sensible interpretation. If you are really interested in the Middle East, you should check him out regularly."— Gary Sick, Gary's Choices

"Since we’re not covering the Tunisian elections particularly well, and neither does Tunisian media, I’ll just point you over here. It’s a great post by MEI editor Michael Collins Dunn, who . . . clearly knows the country pretty well."— alle, Maghreb Politics Review

"I’ve followed Michael Collins Dunn over at the Middle East Institute’s blog since its beginning in January this year. Overall, it is one of the best blogs on Middle Eastern affairs. It is a selection of educated and manifestly knowledgeable ruminations of various aspects of Middle Eastern politics and international relations in the broadest sense."— davidroberts at The Gulf Blog

"Michael Collins Dunn, editor of the prestigious Middle East Journal, wrote an interesting 'Backgrounder' on the Berriane violence at his Middle East Institute Editor’s Blog. It is a strong piece, but imperfect (as all things are) . . ."— kal, The Moor Next DoorThis great video of Nasser posted on Michael Collins Dunn’s blog (which is one of my favorites incidentally) ...— Qifa Nabki